Update to parents on 5th December 2023
Dear parents and carers,
We have made some updates to our behaviour policy which will be going on the school website this week. We wanted to give you a summary of the key elements.
Since September, Mr Gambell has been leading on securing ‘wonderful walking’ – basically everyone just being quiet and sensible as they move around the school, using low voices and not running so everyone is safe and we don’t disrupt anyone’s learning. This has helped make transitions between rooms around the school calmer, particularly now we have so many more children in school. With the staggered lunchtimes to provide enough space on the playground this has become even more important. Most children were doing this already and therefore it is only a small number who need reminders.
Please help us by reminding your child that they need to be safe and sensible in the corridors. If they haven’t had a reminder then they are probably already doing the right thing!
The school rules have been simplified in the new policy to ‘ready, respectful, safe ‘. This covers everything we expect of children and is easier to remember, but still supports children being responsible for doing the right thing and moderating their own behaviour like the previous set of rules. We will be doing work with the children this week on what this looks like ready for a full ‘launch’ after Christmas.
Central to the new policy is
There are also steps to follow for staff so that there is consistency across the school in terms of how behaviour is managed. Staff have worked on these together to get key systems on a single sheet and we will be asking pupils for their feedback and input in term 3, so we need to make any further tweaks to make this work for everyone. Following this we will be going out to parents for feedback.
The new policy also has additional provision for the very small number of children who sit outside of the usual behaviour systems and need more intensive support in order to reduce the impact of their behaviour on others’ learning. This is an important element based on what the children and parents have shared about their worries. We’ve been trialling a few systems for this since September with individuals and have adopted these. In short, for certain behaviours that are deemed disruptive or serious e.g. swearing, pupils will continue to be removed from class - with SLT involved in addressing this behaviour. Other behaviours will be dealt with by class teachers, who will continue to liaise directly with you.
If you would like more information, there is a video of Paul Dix explaining the approach in the link below. This highlights the rationale for adopting this sort of policy.
We hope these small changes and tightening up of systems will mean that as the school reaches its full capacity we continue to thrive as a ‘big school with a small school ethos’.
Kind regards
Mrs Deevoy Mr Gambell
Interim Executive Headteacher Acting Head of School